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McGinnis Venture Competition Winners to Unlock $250,000 in AWS Activate Credits to Ignite the Next Generation of Breakthrough Ventures!

Pittsburgh, PA — March 10, 2026 — The McGinnis Venture Competition is expanding its support for student founders with a major boost in both funding and technology resources. In addition to the increased $125,000 in direct investment awards that was recently announced, winning teams this year will for the first time receive $250,000 in  credits, Amazon Web Services’(AWS) flagship startup program. Credits can be used to offset compute costs on AWS, including infrastructure, data services, and leading AI and ML models from Amazon and top third-party AI companies available on Amazon Bedrock. The goal is to help founders turn their ideas into real, working products.

The $250,000 in credits will be distributed through AWS Activate, the startup program which helps startups at every stage build and grow with cloud credits, technical support, go-to-market guidance, and business mentorship. By covering upfront compute and AI services costs, AWS Activate credits will enable ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV (CMU) entrepreneurs to focus on building, testing, and scaling their products more quickly and cost effectively.

Amazon has been a long innovation supporter of CMU and across Pittsburgh. Through research collaborations, talent recruitment, and a strong local presence, Amazon has invested in the region’s growing tech community and helped create opportunities for students and founders. This continued partnership, building on over a decade of support of CMU Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, reflects a shared commitment to advancing technology, entrepreneurship, and real-world impact in Pittsburgh, Silicon Valley, and beyond.

CMU alumnus Harshvardhan Chunawala, an AWS Solutions Architect who is also a visiting faculty member at ºÃÉ«ÏÈÉúTV and a startup mentor at the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, will serve as a judge representing AWS Startups for the final round of the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition in Pittsburgh. Chunawala is the first publicly awarded recipient of the AWS Golden Jacket distinction, an honor reserved for a select group of approximately 100 technologists worldwide recognized for deep technical expertise across the AWS platform. In his work at AWS, he partners with founders and C-suite leadership teams at high-growth startups and enterprises to design secure and scalable cloud architectures that support the next generation of technology companies and enterprise systems powering global industries.

“Through AWS Activate Credits, technical support and business mentorship, winning teams will be able to build, test, and scale their startups more rapidly and cost-effectively, leveraging the same technology that powers some of the world's fastest growing startups,” said Deap Ubhi, Director and Global Head of Startups Solution Architects at AWS. We are excited to participate in this initiative and help new generations of entrepreneurs build ideas on the AWS cloud and AI stack.”

The 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition is the most competitive it has ever been this year and the Final Round and Social Enterprise Prize Celebration will take place on March 17, 2026, from 2:00–6:30 p.m. at the McConomy Auditorium and the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship on Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus.

Learn more about the 2026 McGinnis Venture Competition.

for the final round and Social Enterprise Prize Celebration.